Initially I’d far better define specifically what I imply by a UFO. To me, a bona-fide UFO is any UFO that remains a UFO just after extensive investigation and evaluation by certified specialists have failed to determine the object as any identified organic or man-created phenomena. The tag ‘unidentified’ signifies that the conclusion was that it could not have even been a achievable or probable organic or man-created phenomena, but what specifically it was remains entirely ‘unidentified’ and most likely forever unidentifiable. Observational proof is suggestive that these bona fide UFOs could be extraterrestrial visitations – the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH).

But wait, I hear screams of protest!

One particular could ague and come to a conclusion that when it is probable aliens would stumble more than our humble abode in the cosmos, it really is incredibly improbable that it would take place inside our lifetime with the final couple of generations. It is vastly much more probable a visitation would have occurred in ancient instances, prehistoric instances, possibly millions if not billions of years ago. Whilst there is one thing to be mentioned for that, there is the counter argument that obtaining visited after, the ‘tourist attraction’ we get in touch with Earth would grow to be ongoing.

There is much more than a single sci-fi story published that plots alien scientists charting our newly formed solar program, surveyed Earth of course, about 4 billions of years ago, left some rubbish behind, and hence spawned the origin of terrestrial life!

Quickly forward a number of billions of years and our alien scientists or explorers (biologists this time) picked up a trilobite or two for their interstellar zoo or museum collection. And I’d bet even aliens could possibly have been fascinated with the dinosaurs! Maybe in our hypothetical interstellar zoo, terrestrial dinosaurs continue to strut their stuff, obtaining suffered a pre-historical UFO abduction!

Alas, the odds any physical proof of such vastly ancient prehistoric visitations or surveys or expeditions would be so uncommon, eroded away or deeply buried, that such musings will most likely forever stay just wild speculations. All witnesses are extinct now!

But moving from millions of prehistoric years ago to much more current prehistoric eras, up by means of and like ancient history, say inside the final 100,000 years, then we could possibly start off obtaining some much more concrete pictorial proof (cave art) or other archaeological, anthropological or mythological proof – which of course brings us to the subject of ‘ancient astronauts’. All I will say on that is that most of the common literature on the topic is bovine fertilizer or pure balderdash. But I am not going to be so rash as to go on record as saying all of it is.

There is a song by nation-pop singer Shania Twain that goes one thing like “That never impress me a lot”. Particularly, when watching ‘ancient astronaut’ documentaries, or even reading the common literature, I’ve under no circumstances been impressed by the monuments argument that aliens either constructed them or helped humans to develop them – monuments like Stonehenge or the pyramids (Egyptian or Mesoamerican) or the statutes on Easter Island. That is promoting human skills quick. I am also not impressed with so named ancient technologies – thousands of year old batteries for instance that appear about as alien as a Model T Ford.

What does impress me are a variety of very anomalous and alien in look historical art functions – images, cave art, paintings, sculptures, etchings, some of enormous size like the Nazca line drawings in Peru so of course created to be viewed from a higher altitude. Also of interest is mythology and comparative mythology that could possibly be suggestive of ‘ancient astronauts’. These are genuine and worthy regions for scholarly study, provided the significance of the topic.

So, why the sudden surge in UFO activity in current generations – 1947 to date? Properly, possibly there hasn’t been – a surge that is.

Contrast that with the period 1847 – 1910 or 1747 – 1810. Appear at relevant variables like population levels and distribution the sorts of terrestrial technologies that could be misconstrued as alien spacecraft the technologies that can detect UFOs communication variables and social variables.

Relative to these eras, the modern day UFO era has a far higher population base the much more individuals, the much more sightings. The modern day UFO era, in contrast to preceding eras, has airships and aircraft and artificial satellites and flares and searchlights and all that jazz which can create sightings. The modern day UFO era has cameras (nevertheless and motion image) and radar and other technologies that are topic to electromagnetic effects that assistance to document UFO activity now that could not have been documented 10 or 200 years ago. The modern day UFO era, relative to 100 or 200 years prior, has way much more communications – books, magazines, radio, Television, other mass media like newspapers, the World-wide-web, films, and so on. If some UFOs are alien craft, the good unwashed is far much more cognisant of it than our counterparts living 100 or 200 years ago. Lastly, 100 years ago, even much more so 200 years ago, there wasn’t the sort of outside nightlife activity we have now. Following dark, you went to sleep up at the crack of dawn. However UFOs are much more readily detectable at evening. It is simpler to spot a vibrant light against a dark sky – but only if your outdoors.

For all these motives, it could possibly be the case that UFO activity hasn’t actually changed more than historical periods. Then once more, possibly it has.

Now if it in the end turns out that 100% of UFOs have zilch to do with extraterrestrial intelligence that there under no circumstances has been ancient astronauts that no alien picnickers left behind their garbage billions of years ago that we under no circumstances had been on the getting finish of a cosmic Johnny Appleseed – if Planet Earth is not in any cosmic database, then possibly we are the proverbial be-all-and-finish-all. We are the 1st intelligence to arise in the Universe – the 1st, possibly the only. Even so, that assumption runs counter to the Copernican Principle or the Principle of Mediocrity that in the all round cosmic scheme of factors, we are just the typical run-of-the-mill. So, let’s not start off off violating these cherished cosmological principles, rather go back to the assumption that some UFOs truly reinforce these principles.

Of course it is not adequate sufficient for going to aliens and their interstellar craft (UFOs if you will) to theoretically exist – there is got to be some sort of actual proof – and it exists in spades.

There exists a phrase “extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof”‘. I’ve observed that in a lot of books, and I recognize it originates from the late and good Carl Sagan. Have been Dr. Sagan alive now I’d take the comments to him, but seeing as how he’s no longer readily available.

Claims need proof. That is not in dispute. Even so, the word ‘extraordinary’ is in the thoughts of the beholder. What could possibly be an extraordinary claim to you could possibly not be an extraordinary claim to me, and vice versa. Murder is a much more extraordinary crime than jaywalking, however the similar proof (say a safety camera film) will convict in each instances. You never want twice the quantity of proof in a murder trial vis-à-vis becoming convicted of jaywalking. So, claims, of any sort, need sufficient proof to convince any person with an open thoughts – no much more no significantly less.

If I, a single of the good unwashed, had been to make a claim that the double slit experiment gives proof for the existence of parallel universes, or that a positron was truly absolutely nothing much more than an electron going backwards in time, that would be extraordinary. If a qualified scientist, a physicist, had been to make the similar claims, it really is not extraordinary presumably mainly because physicists know what they are speaking about. However it really is the similar set of claims. They cannot be each extraordinary and ordinary at the similar time!

Several of the greatest and now accepted components of science began out as an extraordinary claim – like quantum mechanics or relativity theory or the truth that the Earth goes about the Sun. But did these claims actually want extraordinary (like double the experimental) proof vis-à-vis other claims that are now equally components of the accepted science we come across in the textbooks? For open-minded individuals, in particular scientists, such claims most likely did not need extraordinary proof.

Handful of scientists now dispute the (initially extraordinary) claim of the reality of ball lightning, however not only is it far rarer than UFO sightings, it has significantly less of a theoretical underpinning than the proposal that some UFOs have an extraterrestrial intelligence behind them. Ball lightning hasn’t been place beneath a laboratory microscope any much more than UFOs have. There are lots of parallels among ball lightning and UFOs for the sociologists of science to ponder. However a single has credibility, a single does not. Why? It tends to make somewhat small sense.

It is mentioned, and there is truth in this, that science and scientists do not have the time and sources to investigate each and every claim ever created about the organic planet. There ought to be some strategies and signifies of distinguishing affordable from unreasonable (i.e. – extraordinary) claims. Whilst I never have an straightforward answer to that – even though I will give a single quickly under – I will just initially observe that there is been a lot of seemingly affordable claims that are now only footnotes in the history of science, and a fair handful of unreasonable claims that are now portion of the bedrock on which our sciences, technologies and civilization rests.

Even so, alternatively of ordinary vs. extraordinary distinctions, I’d recommend crucial vs. somewhat unimportant claims. Lots of claims, regardless of whether verified or unproven, are not going to set the planet on fire. Other folks have the possible to make for paradigm shifts in our understanding of the planet and the cosmos. The equation UFOs = proof for extraterrestrial intelligence is such an instance. The claim requirements to be investigated, however not requiring enormous much more investigations than any other sort of scientific puzzle would need.

So, we want proof for the extraterrestrial nature of UFOs, not extraordinary proof.

Skeptics would argue that the burden of proof that extraterrestrials are behind (at least some of) the UFO phenomena lies with the believers – these who claim such is the case. And that is accurate. But there is yet another side to that coin. Skeptics want to appear at what proof is presented and not have a thoughts-in-a-closet attitude.

What is the common proof for UFOs? Properly, you have multi-tens of thousands of sightings, most likely six figures worth by now, several multi-witness sightings, much more than a handful of independent multi-witness sightings sightings by individuals employed to outdoors aerial phenomena (like pilots), films and photographs that have defied the greatest specialists to clarify them in traditional terms, radar returns, physical traces, physiological effects on biological tissues, like humans, normally much more than a single of these categories applies. You have a international phenomena, exactly where nations from Australia, the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, France, Russia, Mexico, and so on. have devoted considerable sources to discovering answers to what some see as a ‘silly season’ with a higher ‘giggle’ issue. That tends to make small logical sense – the ‘giggle’ issue, not the official investigations. There are neither psychological, sociological or cultural motives to clarify the origin of UFOs in common, nor distinct UFO reports. It is all proof, and grist for the mill. The crux of the matter is not lack of proof it is how that proof is interpreted. So take the bona-fide UFO residue. Now what is this residue and what takes place if you apply Occam’s Razor to it? Properly, possibly bona-fide UFOs are just ghosts, or angels, or the perform of the devil, or some nation’s secret weapons, or craft from an sophisticated civilization that inhabits our hollow Earth! Or, possibly the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) is the most plausible. I assume Occam’s Razor would err on the side of the ETH.

There ought to be one thing suggestive inside the proof to point in the ETH path, and almost from the incredibly starting of the modern day UFO phenomena (June 1947). The thought or association did not just pop out of the ether for no explanation

The difficulty with UFOs is that they will not stand nevertheless! You cannot place them beneath a microscope, poke and prod them, or study and measure them at your leisure like you can most phenomena. You cannot predict in advance exactly where and when and for how extended they will seem.

Everyone who poo-poos the extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs, “it cannot be thus it is not”, clearly hasn’t truly studied the topic, study the literature, studied official government investigations and reports, accomplished individual field investigations and interviewed witnesses. Out of all the hundreds of thousands of sightings, worldwide, more than all these decades, all it requires is a single (smoking gun) case to validate the extraterrestrial hypothesis. Is there any person out there who can say for 100% certainty that at least a single case is not the genuine deal?

Now I never want any person to inform me that the University of Colorado UFO investigation on behalf of the USAF, the Condon Report, closed the book on the topic – not unless you have genuine the whole report and not just the introductory / summary 1st chapter. There is no similarity among the concerns the actual report raises and the conclusions reached and provided in that 1st chapter. Handful of individuals have taken the time to separate the wheat from the chaff in the Condon Report. The 1st chapter is the chaff the bulk of the report includes the wheat. So, study the whole report – do so, and then speak to me!

Every single key nation has had, or does have, either an official UFO investigations programme, or at least investigates reports of UFOs – six decades just after the ‘fad’ started! Australia, Canada, France, England, Belgium, the USA, and so on., and so on. all have or have had UFO investigation applications. So, conclusion quantity a single is that senior officials took, and several nevertheless take, the phenomena rather seriously. FOI requests have shown significant interest in the UFO region by not only the USAF, but by the FBI and CIA as nicely, continuing even just after the USAF supposedly got out of the UFO investigations region, as a outcome of the above cited Condon (University of Colorado) study. It is not just the good unwashed, low IQ, blue-collar population who are interested.

In contrast, have you ever heard of, or are you conscious of, government bodies investigating Bigfoot sightings, or ghosts, or spoon bending, or the Bermuda Triangle (in common – distinct incidents are of course investigated by relevant security maritime and/or aviation and/or military authorities), or the Ouija board or astrology? You most likely have not, mainly because these ideas are not taken seriously, and the public would be outraged if their tax dollars had been so employed.

As an aside, I come across it exciting that the American Congress has normally voted against publicly funding SETI (legit science if there ever was). To this day SETI is primarily funded by private men and women and institutions. Even so, the American Congress has under no circumstances voted down, reduce, or denied funds to the USAF to investigate UFOs. That is exciting. I am not conscious of any American congressman or senator ever arguing or voting against official government funding spent investigating UFOs – how incredibly, incredibly exciting. Are you conscious of any? What is also exciting is that Freedom of Information and facts (FOI) requests have revealed that each the FBI and the CIA have had an intense interest in the topic, in spite of pre-FOI denials of any interest. So, that is a lot of prime level interest in a silly-season topic with a higher ‘giggle’ issue. Study into it what you will.

Every and each and every UFO investigation has yielded up a affordable percentage of instances that in spite of the greatest scientific and/or military scrutiny stay unknown as to what the ultimate lead to was. That is not in dispute.

Unknown instances consist of not only independent a number of witness testimony, but physical proof – photographs, motion images, radar returns, electromagnetic effects, physiological and psychological effects and physical ground traces. That is not is dispute. You will come across documentation in the official government investigations and reports.

There are qualified scientists, senior military officials*, senior government officials, and a host of other individuals in accountable positions who have witnessed UFOs (airline and military pilots astronauts, police officers, and so on.) who have either spoken out as pro-UFO or a minimum state that this is a genuine phenomenon. That is not in dispute – it is on the public record.

What we want is a/the smoking gun. Not rather THE smoking gun, but a single of several, may possibly very unexplained UFO instances, is the events surrounding Frederick Valentich on 21 October 1978. It is much more a case of exactly where there is smoke, there is smoke, but smoke there definitely is, and lots of it.

In a nutshell, on the evening of that date, Mr. Valentich piloted a private plane from Melbourne, intended location, King Island in Bass Strait. He took off only to shortly thereafter radio in that there was this UFO hovering more than him. The UFO was spotted by a number of independent witnesses. Whilst radioing his observations, all get in touch with ceased all communications abruptly ended. Mr. Valentich, plane and all, vanished with out trace. An comprehensive air and sea search failed to come across any sign of Mr. Valentich, or his plane. No oil slick, no floating wreckage, no physique – absolutely nothing, zip, bugger-all. No trace has ever been discovered of pilot or plane – not then, not because, not ever. The climate had been fantastic for evening flying.

One particular clear explanation was that Mr. Valentich staged his personal disappearance, despite the fact that good friends and family members could present no explanation why he would do so. Of course several individuals voluntarily disappear themselves for a variety of motives several sooner or later are discovered, are caught or reappear voluntarily. But hold in thoughts it wasn’t just Mr. Valentich who disappeared. One particular whole aircraft vanished as nicely, under no circumstances to be observed once more. Certainly if Mr. Valentich wanted to ‘drop out’, there had been simpler and significantly less conspicuous strategies of carrying out so. If he had deliberately gone walkabout, in these decades because of safety cameras and pc facial software program recognition technologies, it would be difficult to stay an unknown walkabout in any populated region.

Was suicide a motive? Once again, no wreckage or physique was ever discovered, and who would go to all the bother of reporting a non-existent UFO overhead – a non-existent UFO that occurred to be independently reported by other folks.

And what of the plane because no wreckage was ever discovered floating on the surface of Bass Strait washed up on beaches, or discovered on the ocean bottom – Bass Strait is not that deep.
It is a mystery, and when it does not prove aliens nicked off with Mr. Valentich and plane, there is not that a lot wriggle area. Now multiply this sort of unexplained case by the thousands worldwide, and you do have the ETH as a plausible hypothesis.

Interestingly, in spite of my asking for a copy of the Valentich ‘accident’ case report in an official capacity associated to my employment at the time, the Division of Transport (Air Security Investigations Branch) refused. To this day, to the greatest of my information, that report has under no circumstances been publicly released.

These who have investigated UFOs with maximum time, power and sources are of course these from government agencies, representing the government. Therein lays a challenge. No government is ever going to admit – assuming an extraterrestrial intelligence behind UFOs – that is does not have complete handle more than its airspace. No government is ever going to admit it is close to powerless against achievable invaders, like a hypothetical extraterrestrial a single. Any government that has insights into the artificial (extraterrestrial) nature of UFOs technologies is definitely not going to share that facts with other governments, on the other hand allied, far significantly less their good unwashed Joe Doe public.

Now skeptics will argue that some nations with official UFO investigations applications have shut them down (or at final that is the official line). There are two achievable motives for that, assuming every thing is on the up and up. The clear a single, to sceptics, is that there is absolutely nothing to the topic – time, funds, manpower, sources have been wasted and it really is time to bail out and reduce the losses. The rather significantly less clear a single is that we now know what we necessary to know and thus there is no point in carrying on. That signifies either a secret admission that we’re helpless no matter what, so no point, or there is been a conclusion that UFOs pose no threat, so once more no specific point in carrying out much more research. In truth, if you instance the motives governments (American and British quickly come to thoughts) have provided for obtaining out of the UFO enterprise is that phrase – ‘no threat’ – UFOs, what ever they are, or are not, pose ‘no threat’ Note that there is under no circumstances a definitive statement that definitely no UFO has represent extraterrestrial intelligence technologies, that aliens are not right here, it really is constantly that UFOs pose ‘no threat’ and thus we’ve got far better factors to do – like dealing with factors that are threatening! That ‘no threat’ phrase could possibly represent a possibility that the powers-that-be know much more than they are telling – ‘no threat’ signifies distinctive factors to these in the know vis-à-vis the good unwashed who could possibly not be rather as convinced if they knew what the powers-that-be knew. That is a superior explanation for not confiding in the good unwashed!

UFOs pose ‘no threat’. That is the genuine justification for bailing out. And when such statements ordinarily have an further proviso that no proof of extraterrestrial activity has been uncovered, the government can not claim there is no aliens about – absence of proof is not the similar as proof of absence. Particularly, it really is hard to draw the conclusion that no UFO sightings can be attributed to extraterrestrial activity with all investigations leave behind a statistically considerable residue of unknowns unsolved UFO sightings. I am not speaking right here about instances ‘solved’ inside categories of achievable this, or probable that, or even insufficient information, but entirely unknown, as in we have not a bloody clue in (or out) of this planet as to what the sighting truly was even even though we had apparently adequate information to suss it all out. It is a case of your guess is as superior as mine. Now if the sum total of all unknowns had been countable on the fingers of a single hand that outcome could possibly be dismissible. Even so, the unknowns ordinarily account for about 7% or thereabouts of officially investigated instances instances investigated by government officials, ordinarily the military, aided with civilian scientific knowledge as expected. In the case of the Condon Committee University of Colorado UFO study, if memory serves, reading the whole text reveals an unknowns price of about 30%, but then they did choose the greatest of the greatest of the preceding unsolved instances to attempt their luck against.

The unknown instances residue gives an exciting challenge to science and scientists – these with an open thoughts anyway. There is a scientific wealth of gold in them thar hills to be study and mined. There is absolutely nothing significantly less than the achievable proof of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life at stake.

This would not be comprehensive with out reference to Roswell. I never want to say as well a lot about the Roswell, N.M. case (July 1947), other than to point out that the then US Army Air Force admitted publicly, in the media, in newspapers, on radio, that they had captured a single of these mysterious (and only lately sighted – the modern day UFO era was just weeks old) flying discs. No quantity of back-pedalling can alter that now historical truth. It is on the record. Appear it up oneself!

I am in a bit of a quandary about which UFO era is the greatest for mining. Ordinarily I’d say the earlier the far better in that contamination is restricted or lowered. Hence, the 1st (or close to the 1st) visual sighting or the 1st (or close to 1st) physical trace case or the 1st (or second or third) this or that. Alas, that signifies going back to say the 1st 5 to ten years of the modern day era – 1947-1957. Witnesses and linked proof has been diminished more than the interval among then and now, even if original documentation nevertheless exists. Latter eras are far better, but current instances have a higher likelihood of obtaining been influenced by what has come ahead of. All else becoming equal, I’d mine these 1st ten years, but that is me.

Do I have the smoking gun? No, otherwise I’d be booking my flight to Stockholm to acquire the Nobel Prize! Does the smoking gun exist in the raw unknowns’ information? I never know, but it does not hurt for it to be combed by means of once more.

So, why are not scientists jumping at the likelihood to prove the ETH? Why no significant academic study of the phenomena. I imply there is most likely a Nobel Prize at stake, just waiting for that scientist, or group of scientists, to boldly go and prove the ETH. Properly, it really is generally mainly because the whole topic of alien visitations, regardless of whether UFOs or ancient astronauts, have been hijacked by intense components – the lunatic fringe. Hence, the field has accomplished a higher ‘giggle’ or ‘silly season’ reputation. Newly minted academics, seeking to establish themselves as bona-fide significant scientists, ingrain themselves with their peers (who largely handle promotions, funding, and so on.). That signifies, they tackle significant subjects – not ‘giggle’ issue and ‘silly season’ subjects, unless they want their careers nipped in the proverbial bud. And so, in public at least, you have a tendency to get attitudes along the lines of ‘everybody knows that it really is nonsense’, ‘it cannot be, thus it isn’t’ or ‘don’t confuse me with details, my superior’s thoughts is created up thus my thoughts is created up’. And so it really is a vicious circle. Only significant scientific study will get rid of the ‘silly season’, ‘giggle’ issue but the ‘silly season’, ‘giggle factor’ prevents significant scientific study.